In defence of Prabhakar's tactics

There has been considerable debate over the methods adopted by Manoj Prabhakar via his secretly video taping several interviews with unwary personalities from the cricketing world, the film world and the political field. Some have lauded the tactics, others have termed them as unethical. Some of those interviewed are said to have been hurt at the clandestine manner in which Prabhakar conducted the interviews. Prashant Vaidya for one has said he has been betrayed. The BCCI secretary JY Lele, in a response so typical of him, says the tapes have been doctored. But the fact remains that the tape has succeeded in exposing one important facet of a common human failing - saying one thing in public and quite another in private. The disclosures in the tapes expose quite a few leading personalities in this regard.

Let's try and take things from Prabhakar's viewpoint. In 1997, he went public over the match fixing issue and said quite openly that the evil was very much prevalant in Indian cricket. No one believed him and he was treated as a maverick, a publicity monger. Hurt and angry, he bided his time and when the Hansie Cronje bombshell exploded, he got his chance. Taking the stance that he had been vindicated, he probably waited for the ``truth'' to come out as far as Indian cricket was concerned. Of course, it was naive on his part to expect that any Indian cricketer would come out with a Cronje like confession, even if the player was involved in match fixing. But Prabhakar wanted, what was according to him at least, the truth to come out. And when everyone was simply denying everything, when people were simply `rubbishing' even things that had become a fait accompli, Prabhakar obviously could not take it any more. And so the secret tapings started. And no one can deny that they expose something terribly rotten at the heart of Indian cricket. Maybe what Prabhakar did wasn't exactly cricket. As he himself admitted at the press conference, ``after today I know I will be friendless in cricket circles. But I have not done all this because I am against any particular person. I owed it to the game.'' Indeed, if anything it must have been a tough decision for him, knowing all too well that it would win him no popularity contests. And as everyone knows, it takes courage to take an unpopular decision.

Some things are not seen in the right perspective at the moment they are carried out. But with the passing of time, these same things are put in the proper perspective. Interestingly enough, an Indian newspaper poll had asked the readers if they approved or disapproved of what Prabhakar had done in carrying out the secret recordings. More than 61 percent of the respondents said they approved and around 36 percent disapproved. Here I am reminded of the well known song from the 1974 Amitabh Bachchan starrer `Zameer'. The lyrics go: ``Jahan sach na mile, wahan jhut sahi, jahan haq na mile, wahan loot sahi.'' Prabhakar has just followed what Kishore Kumar had sung, more than 25 years ago.